Ricky Gervais's episode of The Simpsons drew a spectacular 2.2 million viewers to Sky One last night, the channel's highest ever audience for the cartoon comedy.

The ratings will almost certainly catapult the show into the multichannel top 10 for 2006 and make it Sky One's second most watched show ever, after an episode of Friends in 2000 that attracted 2.8 million.

Football matches between top teams such as Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United are among the only multichannel broadcasts that regularly top 2 million.

Last year's best multichannel audience was the 3 million viewers who watched the Premiership clash between Manchester United and Chelsea last November.

Homer Simpson: This is Your Wife, which Gervais scripted and starred in, attracted a 15% share of the multichannel audience between 6.30pm and 7pm, according to unofficial overnights.

Last night's audience was more than double the usual viewing figures for a new episode of the long-running US cartoon comedy on Sky One - in the same 6.30pm slot last week the show was watched by 1 million viewers.

Immediately before the Gervais episode, a repeat episode attracted 1.3 million viewers, while another Simpsons repeat following on at 7pm had an audience of 1.2 million. Simpsons repeats on Sky One normally attract around 500,000 viewers.

The success of Gervais's Simpsons episode made Sky One the third most watched channel in its slot last night, trailing only BBC1 and ITV1.

On BBC1 between 6.20pm and 6.50pm Last of the Summer Wine had an audience of 4.3 million viewers, followed by the 5.7 million who tuned in for Antiques Roadshow,

ITV1's regional news was watched by 2.6 million, followed by 3.9 million for the national bulletin at 6.45pm.

But The Simpsons outrated BBC2's London Marathon highlights, watched by 1.1 million viewers, Channel 4's The Worst Jobs in History, on 1.6 million, and Channel Five's film epic Jason and the Argonauts, with 1.2 million.